


Eheu! Cried the Pomposo

by KChasm



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Isekai, Poetry, Protagonist is not Robin, highfalutin narration, oc-insert
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-03-16 04:49:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13628922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KChasm/pseuds/KChasm
Summary: Bobby Naghash, young and mostly unremarkable, travels to Ylisse and has a very hard time.





	1. Advena in Terra Aliena

> When we stepped into the new world  
>  (When we fled into the new world,  
>  Heart-heavy, spines bowed)  
>  Nobody was there
> 
> To greet us. Everybody was there:  
>  The ticketmaster with lines beneath his eyes  
>  To disregard our dream, salt-and-pepper  
>  Moustache, the homeless wanderer,  
>  Holding tight his hound, smell of cigarettes  
>  And thick of fruit, the girls ( _they did not_ _notice_ ),  
>  Singing hopscotch with silver dimes, the  
>  Suitworn lady, bleach-clean, turned aloft, speaking  
>  Curses to her phone, and
> 
> An angel came to greet us, or a devil  
>  “Welcome,” she said, and try as we might  
>  We could not see between heaven and hell

— _When we stepped into the new world_ , Marjan Naghash

* * *

 

Bobby Naghash awoke and discovered, to his dismay, that his entire body had become a receptacle of pain. With great effort, he pried his eyes open—the better to uncover his circumstances—and then squeezed them shut again as the sudden influx of light and color sent him nauseous.

Steeling himself, he opened his eyes once more and peered into the unknown.

A pair of eyes peered back.

There was a choked sound of surprise, though whether it came from him or the boy those eyes belonged to, he couldn’t tell. It was the boy who fell, though—unfooted by the shock, with a _thump_ as he landed across the floor. It was solid enough a noise for Bobby to forget his pain, for a moment—that he sat up, even as his head spun against the motion, to look over the side of his bed.

“Are you quite alright?” he asked.

The boy winced from where he sat. Bobby couldn’t see any blood, which seemed a well omen. “I’m fine,” the boy groaned. “Reckon I just bruised myself—‘sides, I oughta be askin’ _you_ that question.”

For a moment, Bobby didn’t understand the statement—but then the pain returned, as if it had needed only the reminder. It was a full-bodied pain, an ache that seemed to fill his entire body—as if, perhaps, someone had forced him to march to the point of unconsciousness, and then somehow had him march even farther.

Suddenly, the urge to put head back to pillow was a palpable temptation. It was only manners that kept him upright—though he did allow a degree of slouch. “I don’t know,” he said. “what happened to me?”

And then another concern: “Where _am_ I?”

Because the room he was in was unfamiliar, not only in itself, but in aesthetic. No hospital, this—rather, Bobby seemed to be laid in a _cottage_ —wooden, utilitarian in design, with the ribs of the roof visible to the naked eye.

To a boy who had spent his living years in suburbia, the sight was a strange one.

“I found ya out on the seashore, by the cliffsides,” said the boy. “I wouldn’ta even seen ya, ‘cept that I happened to look downward.”

“Cliffs?” Were there cliffs, near his home? He didn’t recall—

“Yeah. They had to gather a couple’a folks to take ya up, even the long way. They were real surprised when it turned out you were still breathin’. Ah, not that that’s a bad thing—”

“Stop.” Bobby raised a hand. Indebted as he seemed to be to this boy (child? He seemed a few years younger than him, at any rate), he was still missing altogether too much to understand. “I’m sorry—but— _where_ am I?”

“Oh, right. You’re at Fort Lucen. I dunno how far’s that from where ya meant to be, though.”

 _Fort Lucen?_ “I’m afraid I don’t know the name,” Bobby said.

“Yeah, I kinda expected that. We’re pretty far from the capital, and off the mainland, to boot, so it’s not like a lot of folks out there know us by name.” The boy picked himself from the floor, straightening his garments as he rose, and for the first time, Bobby noticed his clothes. Rather than a usual T-shirt, or even something that buttoned downward, he was wearing—a tunic? Something _tunicesque_ , at the least, with all the imagery the word “tunic” might summon—stitching irregular, and the cloth fastened close at the waist with a length of cord.

 _Off the mainland_. An inkling began to form in Bobby’s mind. He sidestepped it instinctively. “Have you a telephone?” He asked. “I don’t know how long I’ve been unconscious—” And at sea—and _how_ had he become _at sea_? “—but my parents must be badly worried. It’d do well to let them know I still live.”

“Sorry, a _what_?”

“My parents,” Bobby repeated. “I certainly never informed them I would be away from home, much less adrift—rather than simply worried, they must be sick with it. So, any ways of communication would do.”

“No,” said the boy. “I mean, yeah, I got what ya mean, ‘bout parents. If I went off without tellin’ my ma, she’d worry herself something fierce. It’s just—”

He paused.

“Yes?” said Bobby.

“What’s a _telephone_?”

The inkling began to gather into something large-spread. Noxious. Bobby thought very hard, as not to think anything else: _No telephone_. “Ah. My apologies. What would be the swiftest means to deliver my assurances, then?” he asked.

“ _Well_...the pegasus comes ‘bout every week. If ya don’t mind waitin’, I reckon you could hand ‘em a letter the next they’re around.”

“And _The Pegasus_ —this is the airplane that delivers mail, then? The ship?”

“What’s an _airplane_? A pegasus’s a pegasus. Gee, maybe ya better lie down again. You ain’t lookin’ so good.”

He looked, he suspected, about as well as he felt. The inkling was now a suspicion, heavy and thick, and he let himself sink with the weight of it. “The capital—” he murmured, “surely it’s called _Sacramento_...”

“I dunno ‘bout any ‘Sacramento,’ but the capital’s called ‘Ylisstol.’”

It was a terrible thing, to be right.

* * *

“I feel I must inform you—I seem to be in the wrong world entirely.”

It was a sentence that gathered no good attention, though attention it _did_ gather. Donnel, for example—for that was the name of the boy who had saved Bobby’s life—ceased his awkward shifting so as to properly adopt an expression of puzzlement.

His mother’s reaction was similar, but only so. The woman had been freely subrident the first she’d entered, carrying for him a bowl of thin soup which Bobby nonetheless had finished with swiftness and thankfulness both, but now—now, with this revelation in play—she, too, favored confusion.

Confusion, and a certain wariness.

“The wrong world?” Donnel replied first. “Don’t ya mean ‘the wrong country’?”

“I’m afraid not. Your land’s name is wholly unfamiliar to me. This, and the presence of _pegasi_ —” He grimaced to say the word. “There can be no other conclusion. This is not my world.”

Donnel’s mother—her name still unknown to Bobby, as she had only introduced herself suchwise—raised her hand, though whether for comfort or warding Bobby couldn’t know. “You can’t say that for sure,” she said, firmly. “You might just be from someplace far off, only where they don’t have pegasuses.”

“Except that _my_ world is wholly mapped,” Bobby said. “And with nigh certainty, I can say this: There is no country in my world called ‘Ylisse.’”

The room returned to silence, long enough for all parties to digest this. And then—a small, self-directed mutterance, but heard by Bobby:

“Those clothes _are_ awful fine.”

“Sorry?”

Donnel’s mother nodded. “When Donnel brought you in—I _thought_ your clothes looked different to the ones we’ve got here. I’ve done a fair bit of tailin’ in my time, but I’ve never seen a shirt with stitchin’ that tight in.”

“A keen eye. Mass-produced and machine made, this—see here.” Bobby reached to his collar, Donnel and his mother tensing at the sudden motion—but it was only to hitch around the tag at the back of it, after all, and this quickly abated. Donnel’s mother even approached, tugging it farther up herself, into a better position to squint and peer.

Though before long, she gave it for lost. “Donny, can you read this for your ma? My eyes ain’t what they used to be.”

“So?” prompted Bobby, after Donnel, too, had had his turn to spy.

Donnel stepped back, uncertainty to his face. “Um...I can’t read that.”

“I can devest myself, if you wish.”

“It ain’t that. I can see the letters just fine, even if they _are_ a mite small. But they don’t look any sort of language I’ve seen before.”

“Are they not in—” “English,” Bobby nearly said, before it occurred to him the unlikelihood of _Engles_ , “the same language we speak now?”

Donnel shook his head. “I know my letters pretty good, and I ain’t seein’ none of ‘em here.”

 _Necopinatius etiam necopinatius_ , thought Bobby, grimly.

Donnel’s mother frowned. “Well—whether you’re from this world or not,” she said, and Bobby suspected very much that she favored “not,” “at least you _seem_ like you don’t mean harm. Though, if I was you, I don’t know I’d keep on with that tale ‘bout bein’ from another world—‘less you can find one of them magefolk to prove it.”

Pegasi _and_ mages? Truly, this was a fantastic world Bobby had come into. “I take it that traveling from world to world is less the norm.”

“It ain’t even _close_ —”

But alas—whatever it wasn’t close, Bobby would never hear. The door behind her swung open, and a man came tumbling through with high franticity. His eyes lit upon Bobby, then Donnel, then Donnel’s mother in quick succession, focusing themselves upon the last.

“Abernathy’s kid told me the creep woke up,” he growled. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

Donnel’s mother’s frown became deeper, stonier. “Kendric!” she exclaimed. “He’s barely woken!”

“Which means he won’t have any time to make up some cock-and-bull story about washin’ ashore. And anyway, I don’t need to ask ‘im anything to _tell_ he didn’t come from Ylisse.”

“Which _ain’t_ to say he’s dangerous, either,” said Donnel’s mother. “There’s plenty places which ain’t Ylisse _or_ Plegia.”

“And if you’re suggestin’ he washed up ashore from one of _those_ , all I’ve gotta ask is how he managed to ‘wash up’ _bone dry_!” The man turned his attentions to Bobby in full. “What was your plan, huh? Measure out the fort and tell your Plegian friends where to strike?”

“There’s a great deal of information I’m missing,” Bobby responded carefully—he could do little else, “but I can assure you that I’m not—‘ _Plegian_.’”

“That’s a load of _bullocky_!” And to Bobby’s supreme discomfort, the man—Kendric—reached over to prod at his chest with one white-etched finger. “The only place folks come out with skin like _this_ is from Plegia and Ferox, and ya sure as saints ain’t from Ferox!”

What impeccable logic! Yes, Bobby’s skin _was_ noticeably the duskiest of the room, but this was by consequence of Iranian diaspora (his parents, naturally), not Plegian machination—whetever “Plegia” might be. Somehow, though, Bobby doubted this argument would hold weight in Kendric’s eyes. His response, therefore, was less rebuttal and more wry suggestion:

“Perhaps you ought to reconsider your worldview? You’ve founded it on sand.”

“Reconsider _this_ , you and your band of cutthroats—” Prod, again. “If ya _ain’t_ from Plegian, then who was it that set off that bloom of magic last night, huh? Was it Naga, maybe? Reachin’ down to give you a little light show?”

“Alright, that’s far enough!” And in the midst of this degradation, Donnel’s mother wove herself between the two of them. “You—” she said, first, looking to Bobby—to _Bobby_? “Stop rilin’ Kendric up! It ain’t helpin’ matters none!”

“‘Rile’? I’ve done nothing of the sort—”

“And you!” Donnel’s mother spoke over Bobby’s words, but her ire seemed focused on Kendric, so he minded only by half. “Maybe he’s Plegian and maybe he _ain’t_. But he _says_ he ain’t Plegian, and there ain’t nothing yet provin’ otherwise. If you end up takin’ your pains on him and he _ain’t_ Plegian after all, what kind of lout are _you_?”

“But he _is_ Plegian!”

“And if he turns out to be Plegian, _and_ he turns out to be in with those bandits, I’ll be the first to give him lumps! But till then, nobody’s harmin’ anybody under _my_ watch, hear?”

Kendric hissed, low. “Fine,” he said. “But _I’ll_ be the first to say ‘toldja so.’” And with that Parthian shot, the man strode from the room, closing the door behind him with floor-shaking force.

“Well,” Bobby muttered, “that was singularly unpleasant.”

Thought he his host would agree? Yes, he had been sure his host would agree, which was why the glare in Donnel’s mother’s eyes froze him to his spine. “And as I said—you didn’t do much but rile him up,” she said. “If you’re stayin’ here, I won’t have you foul-mouthin’ Kendric like that—you understand?”

Very well! It was the least of tolls. “ _Ut vis,_ ” Bobby acquiesced. “That is—as you wish.”

“Good!” Her face reconfigured itself back into something less a scowl, though all Bobby’s reckoning couldn’t say how shallowly—or not—it say. “Now, you rest up—and I daresay I oughtn’t catch you from bed for _any_ reason. You understand _that_?”

Bobby nodded.

Donnel’s mother made a satisfied sound—a sharp _huh_. And with that, she, too, made her departure.

For a minute, perhaps two, Bobby remained still, looking through the space Donnel’s mother had occupied—as if something else of interest would manifest itself, if he waited long enough. Finally, though, he began to lay himself back again, letting himself run back through what speech—what _information_ —had made itself available to him. There were names and circumstances that wanted for context. Plegia, Ferox, bandits—but for now, this could wait. For whatever reason Donnel’s mother had _recommended_ he stay abed, the course of action was a desirable one to himself, as well—

There was a noise—a small shuffling. Bobby nearly lost his balance—halfway as he was, suspended between sat and laid—but prevented it, somehow, from slipping fully. He turned his head.

Donnel—whose existence Bobby had inconceivably _forgotten_ —was a huddled form against the side of the bed. His head was ducked. His head was _adorned_ —with, of all things, a brazen-brown cooking pot. That head angled itself up to Bobby’s sight.

The smile on Donnel’s face was unsteady. “Ma’s plenty scary when she starts gettin’ mad,” he offered, by way of explanation.

“Is she?” Bobby said. “She seemed...” he paused, “...bearable.”

“Only ‘cause she wasn’t mad _yet_. She was headed there, though.”

“Thus your makeshift incaskment?” asked Bobby.

“In what now?”

Bobby gestured to Donnel’s improvised helmetage.

Donnel’s smile became ever steadier, ever more self-aware. It was a smile accompanied by cheerful irony. “Ya haven’t seen it when Ma’s mad,” he said.

Then his form straightened. “Ah,” he said, blinking. “I plumb near forgot! There was something washed up on the shore next to you—well, not ‘washed up,’ I suppose, seein’ as it wasn’t wet, neither. But now that I think on it, it matches pretty well that writin’ ya showed me—on the back of your neck. Ya want me to go fetch it for ya?”

Some English-laid object? “If it wouldn’t trouble you,” Bobby said.

“It wouldn’t, not at all! You wait here—I’ll go ‘n’ get it!” And so exited the last of Bobby’s newest acquaintances, ere he could mention that he had little intention of leaving his bed regardless.

No matter. This was delightful news. He had thought himself thrust into a new world with only the clothes upon him, but it seemed that something else had been left, as well. And—though perhaps he was too quickly heightening his hopes—there was the possibility that whatever this item was, it might provide him some sort of explanation for his current whereabouts.

It was no time at all before Donnel returned—though to Bobby it seemed eons. “Here!” Donnel said, pushing the object toward him.

 _Under Their Eyes Unseen  
_ _Marjan Naghash_

A book.

Bobby read its title for a second time, just to be certain. He had no need to. He might have easily recited the words with his eyes shut tight.

“Well?” said Donnel, expectantly.

“Well,” said Bobby.

He took the offered item, regardless.

A stranger, stranded in some otherworldly land.

And all he had to his name were his garments and a collection of his mother’s poetry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> KChasm, don't you think you've written too many OCs?
> 
> Yes.
> 
> Yes I do.


	2. Tranquillitas Ante Procellam

There was a fault in his memory.

His last night in familiar California: He could remember it readily enough— _to a point_. The hour had been late, the house quiet, his parents having departed for well-deserved dinner and bibation. He had spent his own time at ease, preparing his own evening meal, finishing it, leaving the food-soiled dishes for later, curling into the chaise longue to reread a familiar book—

And then the impression of _light_ —

And then nothing, nothing, nothing, until Donnel and his unwelcome revelations.

From California to Ylisse. It was a journey too far to have reasonably occurred without remembrance, but without remembrance Bobby stood, and for all that this vexed him there was naught he could do but hope for time and luck to restore what had been lost— _mislaid_. Some sight, perhaps, might give light to a memory, and reveal the path he had trod to reach Ylisse—and, therefore the path he might tread to leave it.

Or perhaps he might never know what mystery had befallen him.

Perhaps he would live the remainder of his life in this foreign land, his transmission unsolved, his death unremarkable.

It seemed as plausible a fate as any, one that Bobby had sought valiantly to ignore—but with little else to do but lie in bed and read and reread the same volume of poetry, his efforts had been without success. The poetry was more than passable (though naturally, he was biased in this matter), but it was _familiar_ , and this familiarity had worked against him, as he had discovered it _all too easy_ for his mind to wander away from half-memorized worms and to the subject of his circumstances.

In time, however, he _had_ regained strength enough to leave his bed (to Donnel’s delight and Kendric’s dismay), and this had given him opportunity to keep his hands—and so his mind—busy. Donnel’s mother was no fiefdom’s lady, after all. Her household was herself and her son, and on their own hands their lives depended. And now, their already meager lifestyle had been strained by the care and nursing of a third body, which seemed to Bobby a debt he had obligation to repay, despite the protestations of his hosts.

But even this saw its own share of difficulties, for it soon became apparent for all of Bobby’s well intentions, he was unsuited to heft any of the burdens Donnel’s mother cheerfully shouldered. He was a boy of a different land and lifestyle—one that had afforded him an ordinary existence, one of leisure, luxury, and excess sustain. His hands were smooth, his arms unmuscled. He knew nothing of the husbandry of animals nor cultivation of crop.

Ultimately, he was of little use, save as a runner of simple errands.

 _Ergo_ —errandeer Bobby became. Deliverer of messages and fetcher of items, he—fulfiller of simple tasks that might otherwise have been seen to by any young child.

For this, and only this, could he be counted on.

Well! There were worse hosts to indenture oneself to, indignity aside. Donnel’s mother was a kind mistress, once she seemed certain that Bobby meant no harm to her and her own. And Donnel was similarly kind, far willing to walk Bobby through some process or provide a helpful trick or explanation that might aid him in his tasks.

And so, in this manner, time passed. Days, then weeks. Donnel and his mother— _Nadia_ , for that was her name—still continued their improbable kindness despite the limits of Bobby’s service. And one evening—the sun low in the sky, the air chilled sharp with wind—

Bobby was sent to the lockyer’s.

* * *

The lockyer was dead. This was the problem. His name had been Dimitry (or at least he had claimed so), and he had come to Fort Lucen years ago, an emigrant from one of the snow-bitten wastelands in East Ferox. He had been received with suspicion upon his arrival, and for some time after it (though never to the extent that Bobby now felt), but eventually—with his expertise in locks and their fitting—had won approval, or at least acquiescence.

He had also, over the year past, developed a pain to his chest. He had dosed himself with the appropriate potions, when able to afford them—but in a place so far from the capital as Fort Lucen, what he _had_ been able to afford had been closer to homeopathy than proper alchemy. The pains had continued, on and off, until, one night, they had come on for the last time.

Now Dimitry’s business fell to his apprentice, a gangling young man named Odgen, and Bobby had been tasked to gather all of the deceased’s belongings—lockyer’s tools especially—and transfer them to the latter’s home.

Bobby knew little of this, of course, save what concerned him directly. “Can _he_ not fetch them?” he asked, scuffing the dust from his athletic shoes against the lockyer’s floor. The sound was little notable itself—but for that it differed from the sound of Donnel’s leathered boots when _he_ did the same. “I would assume this the newer master’s responsibility.”

“Yeah, it oughta be that way, probably. But Odgen’s kinda...” Donnel looked about the room, as if someone might overhear. There was no one, of course, save, perhaps, Dimitry’s spirit, but _that_ was of no consequence. “He’s kinda odd, in his ways,” Donnel continued. “I mean, he ain’t a bad fella—he just won’t leave his place much, if he can help it.”

“And yet, he was apprenticed _here_?”

“Well, it ain’t _that_ far—though I reckon it’s far enough. Now that ya mention it, I dunno how Ol’ Man Dimitry convinced ‘im to stop by so often for apprenticin’.”

“Some particularly alluring carrot, perhaps.”

“ _Real_ allurin’. Ya don’t know how far in Odgen burrows himself when he’s got it in his head something’s gone wrong. He could make _moles_ jealous.”

 _Envious_ , Bobby thought, but graciously allowed it pass. “Burrowers aside, what it there to deliver? Surely we shouldn’t transport the entire domicile.”

“Er...well, now that I think on it, Odgen didn’t really say. He seemed under a lot of pressure, so I didn’t ask too deep. I guess I shoulda, huh?”

Should have? Perhaps! But what stood them to lose by repeat journey? “We might begin with the lockyering tools,” Bobby said, “though I know not their appearance. _You_ will certainly be more knowledgeable in that respect.”

“Shoot, I dunno much ‘bout locks, either. Reckon we oughta just pick up anything that looks like it might be useful?”

It was a better plan than any of Bobby’s—and so, thus decided, work began. It was a task matched well to Bobby’s meager abilities—Old Man Dimitry, ere his passing, had kept his workplace organized with a staggering meticulosity, as if he had feared there might come a day he would need some specific tool _at once_. That day had never come, of course, and no tool of the Old Man’s would have halted his kind of demise, but all his preparation had gathered his most important items close to each other, which was all the better for Bobby and Donnel to gather and bundle.

So continued them, in this fashion, until—

“What’s this?” Bobby said.

The small, wooden box had been all but hidden, half-masked by a tableleg in the darkest corner of the room, but once it was seen, there was no possible way to unsee it. To Bobby, it was a container misfit to its surroundings, finely lacquered, its edges carved into smooth, ornate curves.

Donnel did his utmost to peer around Bobby’s shoulder. “That’s a real fancy container,” he said. “Hey, I think that Ol’ Man—I think he had Barclay make something for ‘im, once. Maybe this is it? Uh—Barclay, he does woodworkin’. Like shelves, and stuff.”

“Yes, I know Barclay.” The man had spat at Bobby’s feet the week prior.

“That’s good! Ma’s been real concerned ya wouldn’t be fittin’ in, but if ya know everyone’s names, it can’t be all bad, right? So what’s in there?”

Bobby lifted the box higher, the better for Donnel to see—both the box, as well as the padlock fixed to the front of the lid. “Have you the key?” he asked.

But while Donnel _had_ collected a number of keys in his inventory of the shop, none were the right fit. It seemed their curiosity would go unassuaged.

 _Unless_ —

“Lockpicks, then,” said Bobby. “Have we any of _those_?”

“I dunno. What’s a lockpick look like?”

“Akin to a key, but oddly toothed. As this is a lockyer’s, it stands to reason—”

And Dimitry, poor health notwithstanding, had been a reasonable lockyer. The lockpicks were ringed together on a simple loop of metal, and Bobby studied them closely—as if doing so would transform his mere familiarity into mastery.

Poor Bobby—a boy from a world of pin tumblers, surrounded now by lever locks. How could he have foreseen that the latter, less and less used in his California, would feature so prominently in his future? But Bobby had not _wholly_ neglected his studies—he understood, at least, how those levers worked, even if lacking in experience. He schooled his face into blankness, so as not to reveal to Donnel the unsurety he felt, and made an application of knowledge.

Such a sight was a wonder to the young Donnel. “Ya know how to pick locks?” he gasped. “That’s pretty amazin’!”

“Yes, my father was sure to teach me—from when I was a child.”

(Though, of course, he had not started Bobby on lever locks back then! Only familiarized him with the concepts: This is a key, here is a lock. Here are some picks, for you to play. Only later, once Bobby had years grown, had the man begun him on the simplest mechanics.)

Donnel’s brows rose higher. “Your pa was a locksmith, too?” he asked.

“In fact—no,” said Bobby. The pick in his fingers twisted, and something unseen moved, or perhaps was only scraped. “He markets wingnuts.”

There was a lull, in which all that could be heard was the scratching of metal on metal.

“Wingnuts?” Donnel asked.

“A certain kind of fastener, shaped specially so to be turned by hand. My father helps to develop advertising campaigns and...” he paused, “...‘maximize product awareness.’”

“Er, I dunno what that means, exactly, but it doesn’t sound like it’s got to do a lot with lockpickin’. Why’d your pa teach ya how to pick locks, anyway, then?”

“I...don’t know. I suppose he thought it a valuable skill I should— _io_!”

For in that moment, some internal mechanism had shifted with the movement of his fingers, and the lock had sprung open. It was a surprise, one that froze the both of them to their feet, and Bobby suddenly realized that he had not truly _expected_ to be able to pick the lock to the box, at least not on his own.

And yet—he had.

“Ya did it,” said Donnel, with voice faint.

“I did it,” Bobby admitted.

They looked upon the work with something like fear.

It was Donnel who was first to recover. “Well, ain’t ya gonna open it up? Ya picked it, so it’d be a waste just leavin’ it closed—probably.”

“Yes, of course,” said Bobby. He lifted the lid—and the two of them froze again, for the interior of the box was a velvet inlay. And laid upon that velvet, in a prepared indentation that left no doubt that the box that been designed for its current use, lay—

A knife.

It bore no sigil, no meaningful emblem. There was nothing of it that smelt of malefaction— _per se_. And yet...

It was Donnel who summed it concisely. “I didn’t expect _that_ ,” he said.

“Nor I,” said Bobby.

But after all, there was very little Bobby had expected from Dimitry in the first place, and even less that he would ever know. The tales the lockyer might have told! That of his escape through the Plegian desert alone would have fixed Bobby at his seat. But Dimitry had passed, and his life was thus lost to Bobby— _in pluvia, lacrimae_.

“So...do we oughta take this, too?” Donnel said. “It _was_ the Ol’ Man’s.”

Bobby closed the lid, hiding the knife once more. “So let it become Odgen’s,” he said. “And—perhaps we should let our investigations go unmentioned.” And to finalize the deception, he made to snap the padlock he had taken such care to prise open back to _shut_ —

Was there some god out there, smiling upon him? Some goddess, tracing a blessing upon his brow? Or was it sheer luck that should send, in that moment, the echoing toll of some great bell—to give halt to his fingers, even as they lay themselves on the device? One, the other, or neither at all—it was enough that at the sound Bobby lifted his head—and saw Donnel, too, lifting his. Donnel’s expression, however, showed not the perplexity of Bobby’s, but something else—something apprehensive.

“What _is_ that?” Bobby asked, as the toll continued.

“It’s the ol’ church bell,” said Donnel, his words soft with distraction. “It ain’t supposed to be ringin’ now, though—not when it ain’t even a holy day. The only reason it’d ring is was if it was an _emergency_ —”

His eyes widened. His expression turned to something else: _Fear_.

When he departed the lockyer’s—at great speed, as much as a boy of his form might manage—he did so with Bobby near to his heels.

(And yet—not so near as Bobby might been, had he not tarried _just_ so long.)


	3. Dispergamur, Amici

By the time the two of them—Bobby and Donnel—reached sight of the village, the bell’s tolling had long ended. Alas: with sight, they needed the tolling no longer.In the sliver of time between Bobby’s departure and his return to the village proper, it appeared, trouble had descended upon Fort Lucen. In what form, Bobby knew not, but he could see its _results_. Chaos, panic.

_Fires._

The fires—in the distance, but all too visible against the dusk—were what solidified the state of circumstances in Bobby’s mind. A population amok meant nothing to him on its own—there were any number of things that might have caused such a panic, deserving or un. But _fires_ —

There was no doubt: Something had gone terribly wrong.

Donnel hissed, pulling Bobby back, and he realized he had been walking closer—all the better to see, perhaps? In his addlement, he wasn’t sure what he _had_ been thinking, and it was embarrassing to understand that Donnel had a better head on his shoulders than he at this moment, youth regardless. But he dismissed this feeling with force: “Has your village a fire department?” he asked. “Some body tasked with extinguishing fire?”

Donnel’s eyes looked through Bobby at something they had no joy seeing. They flickered—to Bobby, again, then back at the sight that easily held his attention. “This isn’t _that_ kind of fire,” he whispered. “It’s gotta be the _bandits_.”

“Bandits?”

“We—I _told_ ya, didn’t I? Far off from the capital as we are, we’re practically easy pickings—but—I thought we drove ‘em off. My pa—” He stopped, midsentence, as if struck.

“Your father?” murmured Bobby. For, come to think it, Donnel’s father—simply hadn’t _been_ , in the time Bobby had spent under Nadia’s roof. An unperson so smoothly unmentioned that Bobby had never even thought to question it.

But Donnel was fixed on other matters: “ _Ma_ ,” he gasped. “Ma’s over there! We gotta—we gotta—” He started forward, with infinitely more purpose than Bobby had before—then stopped once more. He glanced at his hands, then back at Bobby, then back _again_ , off to the flames. It was an expression Bobby knew well—that which beat in Donnel’s face. _Franticity_ —the franticity of stakes too high and choices too many, the sort that stalled a man’s legs, fixing them to the ground when it was all but imperative they move. Bobby had felt this franticity before, in his own lifetime (however short it was so far)—but never had his circumstances been so fraught as Donnel’s were now.

Yes—if there was a sight to justify fearful catatonia, this was it.

But to vacate their senses here could very well lead them to their demise, and so Bobby reached toward Donnel—hesitating only briefly—and placed his hand upon the boy’s shoulder. It was a gesture that served well, a tether for Donnel to follow back to reality. The boy’s shaking ceased, and he looked off to Bobby, seeing him once more.

Still, however, his anguish shone clear.

Bobby kept his hand upon Donnel’s shoulder, firming the grips of his fingers. He spoke low and clear, though he could feel his own heart racing—some effect of adrenal focus. “What shall we do now?” he asked.

“What?”

“What shall we do now?” Bobby asked again. “Is there someone to call upon? Some—force? Or authority?”

“There ain’t anyone _not_ ‘called upon’ by now,” said Donnel. “Even if they didn’t notice all them fires somehow, they sure musta heard that _bell_.”

Yes—in hindsight, an insipid question. “Well—is there someone _else_?” Bobby asked. “Some larger body—” It occurred to Bobby, suddenly, that he had little knowledge of whether “police” proper had ever _existed_ in the Middle Ages—and even if they had, did they still exist _here_?

Fortunately, the pith of his question was understood: “We might—the next town yonder, off northwest. If one of us got over there, quick, we could call for help. I mean, more than we did already.” Donnel’s words were calmer now—still anxious, but _calmer_ , a half-borne flicker of a plan enough of a cynosure that he was able to orient himself.

And then the clouds swept back in, and he lost even that faint direction. “But that’s too far off—even farther, if ya ain’t ridin’. By the time we got there, my _ma_ —”

“Then _I_ will go,” said Bobby. There something within him, something attached to his sense of self-preservation that bid him not speak—but he found it strangely and easily ignorable. “Find your mother, and I will find the next town, and between us...”

He trailed away. He did not want to say: _We may find one, or the other_.

Donnel’s eyes flickered toward the village again. The fires were even clearer now, as evening fell about them with rapidity. “Ya even know _how_ to get to Strigsbeck from here?”

He did not. “I assume a _path_...”

“There’s a path, sure, but it’s on the _other side of town_. Ya ain’t gonna have an easy time gettin’ there with...” Donnel gestured weakly toward the settlement. What panicked bodies Bobby had spied in fleeing were gone by now—escaped, he hoped—but if he tried, harder than he wished to, he could see ever more shadows, moving against the flame. Small shadows, humaniform.

“ _You_ know,” finished Donnel.

And if this had been some loud, effect-choked film, or a tattered paperback novel, Bobby might have dispensed with something nauseatingly self-assured, some witticism or jest. But this was no theater, and so Bobby only said: “Yes,” and held out his hand in offering, just as Donnel had with his mother’s book of poetry, the day they had first met.

And in his palm, gripped loose and unthreatening, lay the Old Man’s knife.

“Ya took it with ya?” Donnel said.

“Some inkling,” Bobby replied, “which gathered on the word ‘ _emergency_.’ Your task comes more difficult than mine.”

Donnel bit his lip—and shook his head. “No—I mean, thanks a bunch, but I think ya better keep it. If it’s _weapons_ , I’m better with a pike, anyway.”

“You have no pike.”

“Yeah, but I know where to get one!”

“And if your supply is overrun?”

“Hey, it ain’t just one place we keep the weapons! Though that’s more ‘cause folks keep takin’ theirs and not puttin’ ‘em back. But I know where stuff tends to get laid, so...that’s good enough.”

Bobby hummed. “You have a response for every concern I might have, don’t you.”

“Darn tootin’ I do! _You_ keep the knife. It’ll be easier for _you_ to use than a pike, if ya haven’t ever used a weapon before.”

And indeed, he hadn’t. And so—he took back the knife, curling his fingers about the hilt with discomfort. “Very well,” he said. “Then—good fortune to you.”

“Yeah—you too.”

There was a moment further as it became clear that there was nothing else to be said, except to delay what needed to be done. And then Donnel turned away from Bobby and began making swift tracks toward the burning town.

Bobby tore his sight away from the recedence of Donnel’s back. “ _Ecce_ _cadaver_ ,” he murmured, and made for himself a way of his own.

* * *

It was a difficult procedure for Bobby to make his way about—literally _“about”_ —Fort Lucen, given the cautious distance he required. Had the village been located upon the Ylissean mainland, there might have been a treeline for him to hide himself amongst, or a hill’s farther side to huddle behind (though, of course, Bobby knew this not)—but _Fort Lucen_ , unfortunately, had been settled upon an island, flat-topped, mesalike, which ended not in forests or slopes, but in sudden, cragged cliffs.

So wandered Bobby between Scylla and Charybdis, ever alert for the pillager’s battlecry, ever conscious of his chance of survival if dashed upon the rocks.

Soon, however, his progress began to make manifestation. Whereas before he had done his wandering _along_ the village, it soon came to pass that the structures and flames (and structures aflame, as well) seemed less at his shoulder and more over his back. The path he found himself walking (dirt, but well-trodden) was all the more confirmation that he was—and literally, as well!—upon the right route.

Now, there was only distance. The path ahead of him stretched out, farther than he could hope to see in this dark. A discouraging unsight—but the stakes were far too important for him to capitulate. So, ever onwards: One foot followed the other, which disagreeably followed the first, and Bobby could well imagine the look of himself—a solitary figure, upon a dark greengrassed plain, and then a mote, a speck—

Hoofbeats came, in easy rhythm. Did the darkness play illusions, or could Bobby see shapes? A telltale billowing of dust, perhaps? He peered down the path, squinting near to closing his sight completely.

The mote, it seemed, was in his own eye.

But a new panic now overtook him. Whose horse, precisely, was it that approached? Reinforcements from the town over, perhaps, having somehow else received note of the fresh calamity? No—the beats were much too relaxed for aid. Some neutral party, then. Or perhaps—perhaps—more of the banditry that had struck Fort Lucen, their lazy hoofbeats borne of confidence?

The franticity that had struck Donnel previously—it struck Bobby now, turned him to a stone figure in that pathway, unmissable. Not that swiftness might have served Bobby—with the land flat and grass low, he could never have hidden himself. And so he stood, as the hoofbeats became louder—louder—until, out of the darkness—

A prince, riding a white horse.

Well! Perhaps one might have excused Bobby for thinking so. The man was certainly a sight unlike any Bobby had glimpsed in the village behind him. In the light of the stars and moon, he could make out the riding figure almost clearly—from his smooth, youthful face, to the cape that tumbled over his back, fastened with the help of a single spaulder over his left shoulder. But as the horseman continued his approach, more than any oddity of face or clothing, what struck Bobby most of all was this! The man—was _clean_. Yes, the ride may have clung to him, in sweat and dust, but even that couldn’t hide that this man, whoever he was, was one to whom a bath was a common thing.

But if this, for whatever reason, had not convinced Bobby—he would have only needed to take sight of the man’s retinue, instead. For the man _did_ have one—a stern, older man who rode at his sight, armored to the image of a knight—a pair of horsemen behind, one hefting a sword, the other, a spear—another man, on foot, but able to keep with the company’s gentle pace, robed, hooded—a _covered wagon_ —

The man who led this company was surely no cutthroat—so Bobby hoped, and in this hope did he place his face. He made himself a spectacle, by hail, by wave, by voice:

“ _E-eho! Eho,_ _equites_ _!_ And again I say: _Eho!_ ”

The procession stopped. Close, but not so close, save for the knightly man who held his own lance at the ready. His expression was hard stone. Had Bobby been the malfeasant Kendric thought him to be, he would have scorned himself for attracting such attention. As it was, he could at least reconsider the merits of flagging down such a man with knife clearly in hand.

Indeed, the blade commanded the majority of the knight’s gaze. “You have our attention,” the man said, nevertheless. “What ails you?”

Was his distress so apparent? Yes, it seemed. “Some menacement pillages the fort beyond,” said Bobby. “If you cannot help, I plead—send for those who can.”

The lead rider—the one who was so princely—frowned, an expression Bobby could nearly miss. “I was afraid of this,” he muttered. And then, louder, surely _meant_ for Bobby to hear: “Do you mean Fort Lucen? Has their guard been overrun?”

“Guard?” Had there been a guard? An informal militia perhaps—but Bobby had paid little attention to the goings-on of the fort. With his nigh-Plegian face, such attempts would have done more harm than good. “I know nothing of guards—only that my companion and I saw the fires from afar.”

“And where is your companion?” asked the man.

“He returned to the fort, in hopes of saving his family. I continued on for Strigsbeck. Must you inquisite _now_?”

“I’m sorry,” said the man, and sounded so. “If the fort is in trouble, we should hurry. Robin, can you see anything from here?”

The robed man raised his head, though not enough for his eyes to come unhidden. “It’s hard to say,” he said. “I can’t even see Fort Lucen with my _own_ eyes.” There was a bite to his words, a kind of sarcasm tempered by good cheer. It was the talk of a man who lurked about corners to frighten passersby, but apologized with sincerity if the jest was taken badly. “I might be good at tactics, but I’m not _that_ good.”

“But you _are_ good at tactics.” So spoke the knight.

“Well, it _seems_ so—”

Bobby, patience strained, could stand this interplay not. “If you _aren’t_ well at tactics, pray send one who is,” he interrupted. “Or at least, one who is well at _rescue_.”

“Right!” cried the leader. “How good Robin is aside, the villagers seem to be in trouble. Sully, you watch...” He trailed, looking to Bobby for name.

Bobby gave it.

“...watch Bobby. The rest of us will ride forth.”

“And if you spy my companion, please tell him of my safety,” Bobby said. “You may know him by his kitchenware.”

“Kitchenware?” murmured the leader, but he asked of no clarification. There was a rearrangement of persons, a parade unloaded and reloaded of the caravan, the ahorsed making seat for those without—

And then, with one last nod, the prince rode across the plains, into the distance, into the dark, his company at his back, a cavalry in all meanings of the word, leaving behind: Bobby, Sully, and a small collection of wagons in the middle of a road, and no one else in sight.

“Figures,” muttered Sully, and Bobby looked up with surprise. He had paid little attention to this knight before, past their existence as a knight, but something of the voice now drew his attention. It took a moment to understand, but—

Was this knight a woman?

His staring was a moment too long, however, and a touch too open. The knight must have felt it upon her. “What?” she snapped. “You got something to say?”

“I must apologize,” said Bobby. “Today marks the first I’ve seen a knight this closely.” (And this was true.)

“Huh! Well, looks like it’s your lucky day. Just don’t _ogle_ , and we’ll be fine, got it?”

An acceptable limitation, especially when set by a woman wielding a lance. There was something faintly embarrassing about being explicitly permitted to study her, however, and so Bobby turned to look in the direction the horsemen had departed instead, as if he could make anything from the darkness of Donnel’s fate.

Minutes passed. Of Donnel, he knew nothing. “I understand your name is…‘Sully’?” Bobby said, primarily to have said anything.

Sully peered down at Bobby from atop her ride, then peered further, as if taking the opportunity for study herself. “Yeah,” she said, drawing the word out. She did not ask him for his name in exchange.

“It was fortunate that you and yours were traveling as you were,” said Bobby. “I hoped to find assistance at Strigsbeck, but I was ill-prepared for the journey.”

“Yeah?” Sully again said, as well as: “So, you’re from Fort Lucen.”

“Rather that I am still to be found there—but yes.”

“See, that’s funny,” said Sully, and now her gaze held something harder. “Because trying to get from Fort Lucen to Strigsbeck—that’d probably take the better half of an hour, even with the wind at your back.”

Even without full understanding, Bobby sensed well the _accuso_. “If there were other choices, please, tell me of them,” he said. “You’ll receive my gratitude.”

“And what, you’re just carrying around that knife for protection?”

“For what little good it may provide, _yes_.” And now came Bobby’s turn to snap. “No dab hand, I, but a little protection seems better than none at all.”

“You’re more likely to stab yourself, holding a blade like that,” Sully retorted, but there was no heat in it. She shook her head. “Sorry—guess I’m still not used to seeing Plegians so worked up about a Ylissean village.”

Could Bobby have been faulted for the flare of irritation? Especially after the gracious hospitality afforded him by Kendric, Barclay, and so many others? “Allow me to clear a misconception,” said he. “I am _not Plegian_. Neither am I Ylissean.”

“Huh. So, what? Ferox, then?”

“Farther.”

“Rosanne? Chon’sin?”

“Farther _still_.”

“If it’s farther off than Valm, that’s pretty far off. How’d you even end up in Ylisse?”

And that was the question, wasn’t it? One to which Bobby _still_ held no satisfactory response. For what was surely the hundredth time, he cast his mind back—

But there must have been some change, that night. Some difference to his state of mind, some familiarity in familiar stars. A memory blossomed—it _had_ been a night, hadn’t it? One as cold as this. He had seen stars then, too, though those faded by suburban lights. He had tilted his head, looking up from his mother’s book, like a man looking to the heavens from prayer, and seen—

“H-hey—look out!”

An arm fell about him—Sully, from up on her steed. Bobby could feel the smooth, cold edges of her armor, smell sweat and earth and animal. And then that arm _pulled_ , and he was swept against the horse’s flank—

There was an impression of something flitting through the dark, so near to him—

Bobby turned his head, and looked, and in the distance, from whence the strange object might have flown, a figure looked back. A figure—but one standing at the head of their own small company. And Bobby still did not understand, not until the figure raised his arms—

And indeed, raised his _arms_ , for the shape he held in one hand was the curve of a bow, and the other hand drew back—

“Friends of yours?” said Sully. “Get in the caravan—I’ll hold them off!”

_Ave, Scylla._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, look, actual Shepherds. About time. We might just make it to the capital by chapter twenty.


End file.
